As I don't have a second hand book shop near me, my books do go to a charity shop. I put mine into the local hospice shop which I hope benefits local people who need this care.I do agree about the high street shops closing which is such a shame. However, I believe this is because the people who complain that their local shopping centre is dying, don't support it. Also our local baker closed recently which really didn't surprise me, as their bread was so expensive and people are having to shop where they can get more for their money. Unfortunately, usually the supermarket, which is taking over from high streets.I live in an area that has a fairly small shopping centre, plus a supermarket. The small individual shops do well as they sell goods that the supermarket doesn't, or give more choice.It is such a shame that these old shops that served the public well for so many years are going as they are. I honestly can't see it going back to how it used to be. The big complexes are growing more and more unfortunately.

I am now a widow and live with Beau my little rescue dog, Mistie cat and Rosie my last chicken.

It sounds like the bookshop is going the way of the second-hand record shop,and will become rarer than hen's teeth on most high streets. Bookshops also face a similar threat to record shops, from digital downloads replacing physical media

I've given up trawling charity shops for records - as someone else said, they have become too savvy (and stick hopelessly optimistic "book" prices on often tatty copies of rare records). Either that or have piles and piles of awful dross for pennies sat gathering mildew in a corner. So I now use proper record shops. If I have records to sell I go to dealers or use ebay.

Would you say there is a distinction between the books sold in your father-in-law's shop and the ones in a typical charity shop? They're usually full of Mills & Boon aren't they? It may be time to find your niche and exploit it.

There's a very good record store near me (Cob Records in Bangor) but they are choosy when buying and will only take records they want, won't even take junk off your hands for free! Must admit I haven't been there to sell for a long while because ebay works great & records are cheap and easy to post out.

Stig wrote:Would you say there is a distinction between the books sold in your father-in-law's shop and the ones in a typical charity shop? They're usually full of Mills & Boon aren't they? It may be time to find your niche and exploit it.

We have to try to exploit every niche. We have Mills & Boon, we have 300 year old volumes priced at £500+ and everything inbetween. Unfortunately, the Mills & Boon are the more popular!

I can't imagine a world without books. I have a kindle, which I like, but it's not the same as a book. Really miss spending an afternoon mooching in some decent second hand book shops - none round here really.

I must admit I like to buy used items where possible to prevent adding to the amount of "stuff" in the world.

Whatever happened to "living lightly"? I kind of feel that we shouldn't need to poseess all these things and that it would be better for the planet if we used libraries, shared and passed around items.

We used to have a second hand book shop that offered 50% of the reatial price back on returned books if you bought another at the same time. That worked will but had for too big a weighting of mills and boom books. I think it went bust because it wouldn't buyback books they didn't sell originally so there was no turnover of new stock.